


The Screaming Of The Lambs

by piece_of_black



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 15:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14287698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piece_of_black/pseuds/piece_of_black
Summary: Two years after Clarice Starling solved the case of Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter disappeared, new killings spread fear in the United States. The FBI is shocked when a now old and believed dead Will Graham suddenly returns to offer his help in the cases. A murder leads Clarice, Jack and Will with their team to Paris and they cross paths with the most famous cannibal again: Dr. Hannibal Lecter.





	The Screaming Of The Lambs

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my first fics uploaded. I hope you enjoy it :) Please excuse any mistakes, English is not my first language.  
> I don't own anything.

Les Champs-Élysées were crowded by people, Parisians and ever more tourists. Every one of them seemed to be in a rush, hurrying down the broad street, disappearing underground in a metro station or in shops and other buildings. Cars were rushing by, someone honked, a tourist dashed across the street, not bothering to seek for a proper way over. They all seemed as they were in a lack of time, living stressful lives, only concentrating on the street ahead of them to get as fast to their work or attraction as possible.  
The man sitting outside a café was like an odd contrast to all these frantic movements. He was comfortable in his chair, holding a newspaper on his lap while he was watching the crowd. His expression as his movements were calm, a soft breeze playing with strands of his white hair lazily. Most people only got grey when aging but he possessed hair as white as fresh snow right after falling. However, his skin was still pretty smooth and his eyes as clear as the sky, gaze sharp and calm.  
Nobody of the trespassers had conjectured him a cannibal.  
Dr. Hannibal Lecter raised his cup and took a sip of his café au lait, the typical way how the French made it. He savoured the warm liquid, concentrating and tasting as much as possible. He closed his eyes, enjoying his drink. The café served one of the best coffees in town and Hannibal could tell proudly that he managed to locate all of the bistros, cafés and épiceries which served with so much quality. The Lithuanian was very concerned to only consume products of high quality, even in his disguised exile in France. Each day he frequented one of them and the smaller ones in Barbès already knew him as a regular.  
Hannibal left every day his small flat, a habit which he had adopted after his escape from the FBI. Being locked for so many years in a piece of only a few square meters bore a hunger for freedom in him, a desire to breathe fresh air and look at the sky. Furthermore, the riot in this city and potential food kept him kind of distracted from brooding over his past and the persons which marked his life. Especially one of them always sneaked into his mind and occupied his thoughts, filling him with longing and burning loneliness. But Will Graham was dead and Hannibal would never get the chance to see the man again who meant so much to him, the man who made him, Hannibal the cannibal, actually feel something. It had been the first time something had touched him so deeply after Mischa’s death.  
But he could not change anything about that fact, so he kept living inconspicuously, selling paintings of his to earn money (not that he needed much of that, for emergencies he had kept an offshore account that the FBI luckily did not find for he had booked it under a false identity), guided tourists through an art museum and kept killing and savouring Parisians. Earlier in his life this had all been what he needed, but Will’s death left him feeling incomplete. Everything had changed after this young special FBI agent had entered his office.  
“L’addition, s’il vous plaît” Hannibal ordered, paid and got up. He needed to get a meal for tonight.  
***  
Clarice took a sip of her watery coffee, not strong enough to her liking and with a too insipid taste. Not even the milk could save it. She grimaced slightly at the awful savour and put her cup back down on the table. Though it was quite early in the morning, more and more people were gathering in the cafeteria, every one of them staring at the long lost colleague or the legend they heard about when they became a part of the institution.  
Jack Crawford, whom best years had already passed, sat next to her and looked incredulously at the man in front of him, sitting at the other side of the table. Grey strands were dangling in from his forehead but his beard had kept a few of the dark colour his hair might have had years ago.  
“God help me, Will” Jack muttered. “So many years I thought you dead. We all did.” The gaze of the legendary special agent manifested on his former and now again colleague, blue eyes that betrayed the elder look of his body. They still seemed so young.  
A few hours ago Will Graham had suddenly appeared in the hallway of the building, standing at the reception and asking tenacious for Jack Crawford. The woman behind the desk cast Clarice a desperate look when she entered and she walked over to the older man with dark brown hair. He had only a few greyish strands. That moment, she had not known that this was the man they all suspected dead, the legend who was the person with special relationship to Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal. When he started to introduce himself to her, Jack entered the building, his eyes falling at Will immediately. His bag fell to the ground with a loud thump, the content spilling on the floor.  
Clarice’s superior and Mr. Graham had made it to his office then and talked for quite a while. Clarice was directed to wait outside. After hardly two hours, they left Mr. Crawford’s office in silence and made their way to the cafeteria to get some coffee. Nobody had said a thing until now.  
Will simply gazed at Jack but said nothing to him. Instead, he turned his attention to Starling.  
“You are the one he worked with.”  
It was not a question. And Clarice knew exactly whom he meant.  
Some said they were friends, others enemies, and some even stated they would have been lovers. As disagreeing they all were, they all agreed on something: that Will Graham had had a great influence on Hannibal Lecter.  
Her eyes were fixating his ice blue ones. “Yes” she replied. She did not know what else to say. It was hard to talk about Hannibal. One could not say anything about him without saying everything.  
They both knew that for both of them had seen the person behind the monster. Both of them had had contact with him that had gone beyond professional issues.  
Something showed up in Will’s eyes, an emotion, but so brief that she could not recognize, only spot it.  
Both of them, the long lost legend and the celebrated new agent felt the weight of Jack Crawford’s look on them. Both of them knew it was not the time to speak about what they had in common, though both burned for it.  
Clarice was desperate to know which version of the story was true, to find out if they really were that what Freddie Lounds had once called “murder husbands”. She could not wait to question the older man about his relationship to this serial killer, how it had evolved, what it meant. But she knew she had to.  
When Jack noticed that none of them was going to continue the topic, he cleared his throat. “So you’ve come back for the cases.” His person opposite just looked at him and did not respond verbally. Jack was in discomfort with this situation, Clarice noticed it though he hid it very well. “Cruel murders, not unlike those we worked on in your time here. Ever as difficult to solve.”  
A cup of coffee was standing in front of Will, he took a sip and then held it away from him, staring at the brown liquid, frowning slightly. His gaze ran empty. Jack had paused and stared at him. When Will noticed it, he put the cup back down and fixated the boss again. “Sorry. Go on, please. I’ve yet to hear all the details.”  
Jack breathed in heavily. “Well, they-“ he began but was cut off when a small crowd of forensic scientists burst into the room. “Will?” Jimmy exclaimed and then Will was surrounded by old colleagues, pulling him up in embraces while screams and shouts in disbelief and surprise and even joy echoed in the cafeteria.  
***  
Seven graveyards, seven deposed corpses which had been disembowelled, their intestines arranged like chains, fixating the victim on each gravesite. It was a cruel spectacle. The killer put the bodies always on graves in whose tombstones the same name was carved in, people named like celebrities and next the grave where the famous person was buried. Seven graves yet, three of them of famous people.  
Elizabeth Taylor in Seattle, Washington, Elizabeth Taylor in Glendale, California.  
Gregory Peck in Denver, Colorado, Gregory Peck in Los Angeles, California.  
Samuel Smith in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Samuel Smith in Baltimore, Maryland.  
And at least, Jim Morrison in Richmond, Virginia.  
The fourth one has yet to come: the grave of Jim Morrison, the singer, buried in Paris.  
Will frowned and massaged his temples. It only could be the grave in Paris, but the killer had not left the United States so far. But when he thought about the killer, the only possible way to finish the fourth pair of murder would be to finish it in Paris.  
So far, the killer had always at least waited one week in between the killings but refrained from using an exact span of time. The FBI has not yet managed to capture him, though they knew his pattern. But Will Graham was resolute to get him before he could kill another person.  
They had a bit of time. The last murder happened yesterday. Six days to prepare and go to Paris.  
Jack put his cellular phone back on the table. “Everything is set. We should be able to be in Paris the day after tomorrow.”  
Will’s gaze manifested on his colleague. He still was watching him strangely, as if Will was a phantom which would be disappearing in an eye’s blink. “Good.”  
“You sure that he’ll kill in France? He has not left the United States so far.” “Very sure. He does not break his pattern.”  
Jack nodded and tapped his index absentmindedly against his cheek, then his gaze returned to Will. “I still cannot believe that you are not dead and here again.”  
“Jack, please.” Will muttered. He had already explained him that he did not fancy talking more about the bluff and his faked death. Nor the exact reasons why he did it. Will had told him a quick version to satisfy his curiosity but withheld his real motive. He did not want to tell Jack that he could not continue a life in which he was obligated to hunt Hannibal the cannibal. Hannibal, who had given and taken from him so much. Hannibal, in whom he had been in love with. And still was. Will had known it the moment he saw Clarice Starling, the woman who had provoked his former shrink’s human side.  
“I know. Sorry” Jack said apologetically. “But we have to talk about it in the future. You have to tell me the whole story.” A spike of anger lit in Will as he heard this words. I have nothing to do if I don’t want to, he thought, but he knew it was no use to argue with Jack now. He did not want to delay their departure and risk one more murder.  
“Alright” he answered simply.  
Jack nodded. “Okay.” He looked at him in silence until he said: “Till the departure, you have a place to sleep?” Will nodded. “I’m in a hotel a few streets from here.”  
Jack nodded again. “Good. I’ve got to sort many things out until we can go, get a plane, build our team, you know. You could wait as long in the cafeteria.”  
“I want Clarice Starling.” “Pardon?” “For the team” Will said. “She’s a good agent and I want her to come along.” “You’ll get her” Jack responded. “Please excuse me now.”  
Will got up and left the office. On his way to the cafeteria he thought about the coffee he had drunk earlier in this morning. The thought brought him to another morning, the one he had shown up at Hannibal’s house. He remembered how dirty he was and how miserable he felt, but also Hannibal’s calm voice and the way his dressing gown had cast creases as he moved and prepared coffee for them both.  
A far better coffee, Will thought. As were his meals. At the beginning I’d have never guessed that I was eating human flesh.


End file.
